16: Heartbreak: Healing When Your Relationship Ends with Stephanie Macadaan, LMFT

Welcome to a show about how to deal with the end of a relationship. My guest is Stephanie Macadaan, LMFT, who practices in Los Angeles. Her work focuses on couples and individuals who are healing from breakups and starting over. Stephanie runs a support group called Happily Ever After Divorce: Healing Support for Women. This conversation is relevant to almost everyone, because the end of a relationship is a universal experience that most people go through at some point in their lives. Join us now. What you’ll hear in this episode:
  • Why Stephanie is on a mission to guide people through these difficulties
  • Ways this pain and heartbreak can be experienced:
    • Conflicting emotions
    • Shame and embarrassment
    • Uncertainty
  • Feeling lost and out of control
  • The challenges of a breakup that are unique to women
  • Empowering attitudes
  • Myths about heartbreak and healing
  • How social media pressures us about relationships
  • Different stages of healing from breakups (similar to stages of grief)
  • Difference between marriage breakups and other relationships
  • Stephanie’s approach: a combination of gentleness and pushing them forward’
  • Learn lessons from the previous relationship before moving forward
  • Dynamics and catalysts through honest eyes
  • Self-awareness = Power
  • Why Stephanie hates the word “should”
  • Words of wisdom: “The end of a relationship is hard to understand unless you’ve been through it. There is great potential to learn more about yourself and create a life that you never thought possible.”
  • Why life is a “blank slate”
  • Stephanie’s Do’s and Don’ts
Resources: www.therapywithstephanie.com Coming Apart by Daphne Rose Kingma The Good Divorce by Constance R. Ahrons Conscious Uncoupling by Katherine Woodward Thomas The Edge of Wonder by Victoria Erickson